No Matter How You Dress it Up Junk Food is Still Junk Food

Americans do love their snack foods. On they other hand, more and more people are concerned with healthy eating. These two conflicting interests make for some interesting snack foods showing up on the grocery store shelves these days.

Recently, many food companies have launched brands of "healthier" snack foods designed to boost your fruit and vegetable intake. It sounds like a good thing, but...

Once upon a time the buzz was low-sodium, so you found a whole host of "lower-in-sodium" snack foods. Then it was sugar—sugar was the single ingredient undermining good health… and so food manufacturers launched whole lines of low-sugar and sugar-free foods. Then there was fat and you couldn't turn around in the grocery store without being confronted by a low fat label.

Well, now the buzz is about fruits and vegetables. So snack food manufactures are powdering produce and baking it into foods.

This new trend is much like the previous ones—it gives you an excuse to eat more junk food. No matter how you dress them up, these high-calorie, low-nutrient snacks can quickly derail your fitness, weight, and health goals.

The bottom line is that you don't need junk food. It's much better to get your fruits and vegetables from actual fruits and vegetables… not from a chip or a cracker.

I'm not saying your should never have junk food. By all means, indulge now and again. But when you do, choose something you actually want to eat, something you'll really enjoy. Savor it. And then get back to your healthy eating habits.


Stay well,
Meghan Krohn